JK Rowling in ‘arrest me’ challenge over Scottish hate crime law
JK Rowling has challenged Scotland's new hate crime law in a series of social media posts - inviting police to arrest her if they believe she has committed an offence.
The Harry Potter author, who lives in Edinburgh, described several transgender women as men, including convicted prisoners, trans activists and other public figures.
She said "freedom of speech and belief" was at an end if accurate description of biological sex was outlawed.
Earlier, Scotland's first minister Humza Yousaf said the new law would deal with a "rising tide of hatred".
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of "stirring up hatred" relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex.
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Ms Rowling, who has long been a critic of some trans activism, posted on X on the day the new legislation came into force.
You can weaponize an opinion, that is what is getting punished.
Where you draw the line? And who is drawing it? Will you be equally happy when conservatives will use the same tools against opinions they see as dangerous?
I think the line is being drawn at "don't sympathize with
terrorist groupsan opressive theocratic government" (publicly stating "at least the taliban know what a woman is") and "don't directly fund hate groups".(Edited, see comment below)
Terrorist for ones are maybe freedom fighters for others - kind of sketchy line over there.
Technically correct, the best kind of correct! (they are technically the legit government of Afghanistan despite being a proxy warzone for the US and USSR(?) as I understand it)
When you woke up today did you decide you were gonna make excuses for the Taliban right there and then or did it kinda just happen? Holy shit.
Taliban are obviously the only terrorist group on the planet and rebels were never before labeled as terrorists.
Which other terrorist group did that TERF sympathize with?
How should I know? I personally don't follow those crazy people.
Who draws it? The government?!
What could go wrong? Assange and Manning would like a word with you.
Slippery slope fallacy "You're okay with the government saying certain ingredients can't go in food? Where does that stop? Will you be equally happy when a government you disagree with uses the same tools to dictate everything that goes in your food?"
"You're okay with the government saying certain areas are off limits to the general public? Where do you draw the line? Will you be equally happy when a different government uses the same tools to forbid you from leaving your home?"
Is this specific step reasonable? Then it's okay. When they try to take an unreasonable step then it is appropriate to do something about it.
My argument is more, that while I trust at least some governments with deciding on what food is safe, I don't trust governments at all with decisions about what speech is permitted.
Hate crime laws already exist. In Germany it's illegal to deny to Holocaust. These are good laws. The creation and acceptance of good laws does not necessitate the creation and acceptance of bad laws.